The 33rd Team Secures Eight-Figure Funding to Drive American Football Analytics Revolution

The 33rd Team, an American football intelligence and technology company founded by veteran NFL executive Mike Tannenbaum, has closed an eight-figure Series B funding round that underscores a significant strategic pivot from media and publications toward deep-dive analytics and technology solutions for the professional game.

The financing backed by a consortium of strategic investors that includes Liberty Media, FORTA Advisors, Autumn Road, Dan Senor, Nick Gross, Gary Vaynerchuk, Ryan Moore, Greg Ciongoli, George Pyne, John Low, and Silver Falcon Capital  marks a clear endorsement of the company’s business model, which sits at the intersection of NFL expertise and data engineering. The firm also added notable football industry insiders like NFL alumnus Justin Pugh and former head coach Matt Patricia to its cap table, highlighting its strong ties within elite sport.

The funding follows a deliberate strategic shift the company began in early 2024, moving away from its roots as a content and media-led brand toward building proprietary technology products tailored for football organisations. Central to this effort is Zenith, the company’s flagship analytics platform, which has already secured adoption agreements with four NFL teams ahead of the 2025–26 season representing more than 10% of the league.

According to The 33rd Team, the partnerships focus on delivering advanced on-field metrics and analytics, with proprietary pre-snap data points including huddles, motion patterns, substitutions, and formations  made available to teams on a near real-time basis. This data is not only informing performance review and player evaluation, but is increasingly integrated into weekly workflow for pre-game preparation and in-game decision-making  areas where competitive margins are razor thin.

CEO Mike Tannenbaum called this funding round “a transformational moment” for the company, framing it as both validation of the firm’s vision and fuel to deepen product development amid accelerating technological adoption across professional sports. He underscored the significance of investor guidance, pointing to the diverse backgrounds of backers spanning coaching expertise, media influence, and tech innovation as invaluable to the company’s future trajectory.

In positioning itself as more than just a data provider  but as a strategic partner that blends front-office experience with advanced analytics and AI-driven modelling  The 33rd Team is staking its claim in a crowded field of sports technology contenders. As competition intensifies and teams seek marginal gains through data economies, this infusion of capital is likely to accelerate the adoption of advanced analytical workflows across the football ecosystem, both in the NFL and potentially beyond.